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UK Nationals 2017 – Tournament Data & Analysis

The UK Nationals were last weekend and a total of 75 players took part to compete for the title of UK Champion. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend, but I do have the data from the event. Thanks go to one of the judges, Steve Stewart, for giving this information to me.

For this tournament, the recently-released two-player decks would be legal. This creates a very short-lived meta (some have dubbed the ‘two-week meta’), as Empire at War is released in the UK on the 21st September and will completely change things.

As expected, the decks present were heavily-influenced by the new product (and rightly so; there are lots of good cards in that set).

In this article we have the full standings of the tournament and top 16 decklists, as well as some brief analysis of the information.

As there is a lot of information, to make it easier to navigate I have added some handy links below.

Links

Standings After Swiss

The number after a character indicates which version of that character was used. For example, Vader1 refers to Darth Vader Sith Lord, and Vader2 refers to Darth Vader Dark Apprentice.

An asterisk next to the number of wins indicates that the player dropped before the end of the tournament.

Rank

Team

Wins

1st

eVader1/Royal

6

2nd

eQGJ/eRey1

6

3rd

ePoe1/eMaz

6

4th

eKylo2/eFN

6

5th

ePoe1/eMaz

6

6th

ePalpatine

6

7th

eVader1/Phasma2

5

8th

eVader1/Phasma2

5

9th

eVader2/ePhasma2

5

10th

eBala/FN/Phasma2

5

11th

ePhasma2/Death/Storm

5

12th

ePoe1/eMaz

5

13th

eKylo2/ePhasma2

5

14th

eVader1/Phasma2

5

15th

eVader1/Phasma2

5

16th

eKylo2/eFN

5

17th

ePoe1/eMaz

5

18th

eVader1/Phasma2

4

19th

eKylo2/eFN

4

20th

ePoe1/eMaz

4

21st

eVader2/ePhasma2

4

22nd

eVader1/Phasma2

4

23rd

eKylo2/ePhasma2

4

24th

eVader1/Royal

4

25th

eKylo2/eFN

4

26th

eUnkar/TIE/Phasma2

4

27th

eVader2/Grievous

4

28th

eVader2/ePhasma2

4

29th

eVader1/Raider

4

30th

ePoe1/eMaz

4

31st

ePoe1/eRey1

4

32nd

eBala/FN/Nightsister

4

33rd

eJango/ePhasma2

4

34th

eVader2/ePhasma2

4

35th

ePalpatine

4

36th

eVader2/eKylo1

3

37th

ePoe2/eRey2

3

38th

eBala/FN/Nightsister

3

39th

ePoe1/eMaz

3

40th

ePalpatine

3

41st

ePalpatine

3*

42nd

eRey1/Acolyte/Padawan

3

43rd

eVader1/Phasma2

3

44th

eVader1/Phasma2

3

45th

eVader1/Phasma2

3

46th

eLuke/Rey1

3

47th

ePalpatine

3*

48th

eVader2/eKylo1

3

49th

eLuke/Rey1

3

50th

eBala/FN/Nightsister

3

51st

eKylo1/FN/Storm

3

52nd

eJango/ePhasma2

3

53rd

eLuke/Rey1

2

54th

eVader2/ePhasma2

2*

55th

eHan/eRey1

2*

56th

ePoe1/eMaz

2*

57th

eBaze/eSnap

2

58th

eVader2/eKylo1

2

59th

ePoe1/eMaz

2*

60th

eLuminara/eRey1

2

61st

ePoe1/eMaz

2*

62nd

ePoe1/eMaz

2*

63rd

eVader2/eKylo1

2

64th

eAckbar/Hired/Hired

2

65th

eBaze/eSnap

2

66th

eMothma/Smuggler/Smuggler

1*

67th

eBala/FN/Nightsister

1*

68th

eVader1/Phasma2

1*

69th

ePadme/Maz/Trooper

1

70th

eBala/FN/Nightsister

0*

71st

eKrennic/Death

0*

72nd

eLuke/Rey1

0*

73rd

eSnap/Maz/Rey1

0*

74th

ePalpatine

0*

75th

eVader1/Raider

0*

As you can see from the table above, in addition to the six players that were 6-1, there were eleven players on a 5-2 record. Since they’d announced that there would be a top 16 cut, this meant that one of the 5-2 players would miss out!

As it turned out, the player that finished 11th wasn’t able to stay for day two, so the 17th-placed player was bumped up into the top cut.

Poe/Maz being the most popular team will probably surprise no one, but Vader (Sith Lord) and the new Phasma being the second most popular might do. Being able to activate Vader multiple times in one turn via Leadership and The Price of Failure must have been too tempting!

Palpatine being more popular than Rainbow Nines was also interesting to see (one of them made the final as well!).

The new Captain Phasma was the most-used character at the tournament, with nearly one-third of the players using her. She is most likely going to feature in a lot of villain teams going forward, thanks to her cheap points cost and good dice.

The rest of the top ten characters were no great surprise, but this close to Empire at War we weren’t really expecting any.

Summary

The winning deck was Kylo Tormented One and FN-2199, beating Palpatine in the final. Congratulations to Danny Adlem (of the Three Man Meta podcast) on becoming UK Champion!

New Kylo is a force to be reckoned with, and although being paired against a mono-blue deck in the final makes his ability seem stronger, it is nonetheless very good.

FN-2199 continues to show what a powerhouse he is. He’s now featured in the winning team of three major tournaments (UK Nationals – Kylo/FN, Gencon – Bala/FN/Nightsister, European Championships – Unkar/FN/Storm). I know there is talk of an errata/nerf. We’ll have to see what effect Empire at War has on FN’s supremacy.

Hero

Villain

Top 16

5*

11*

Overall

27

48

[*After the swiss portion of the tournament, there was one extra villain player that made it through. However, they dropped from the tournament, which meant that the 17th-placed player (a hero player) was bumped up into the top 16 portion of the event.]

As you can see from the table above, it was about two-thirds villains in overall attendance and top 16 placings. This isn’t unexpected, as so far in Destiny, villains have had the greater number of viable character combinations. Empire at War is looking like it might redress the balance, but only time will tell.

Anyway, I hope that you have found this information interesting. It has been nice to see that easily-available starter decks cards and characters were being used to good effect; it’s an encouraging sign to new players that they can quickly start using higher quality decks.